Cambodge

Cambodia, or Cambodge to the French. What a country. I thought I loved Thailand and Laos but Cambodia is by far my favourite. I think it's because as a country it's been through so much, and yet the people are so hospitable and friendly you can't help but fall in love with the place. We started out in Kratie, an old riverside town in the northeast nearly 2 weeks ago, then moved to Siem Reap, a beautiful French colonial town in the West, home to Angkor Wat, and several hundred amazing restaurants and bars and now we're in Battambang, where we have experienced the delights of the bamboo train, an old, soon to be disused railway line where you can sit on a rickety bamboo platform in wheels powered by a motor and shoot through the countryside. Although it was a tad bumpy it's such a lovely little experience, and you get to see a really rural part of the country. The people in the village you stop in are really kind and giving, which is such a change to everyone trying to sell you something or rip you off. They're going to stop running the train in the new year so the government can make a proper railway through Battambang linking it to the rest of the country but it will be such a shame to lose something that is so special and such a tourist boost to the people of Battambang because to be honest, apart from a few beautiful old french villas there's nothing going on here. We leave tomorrow to head to Sihanoukville, then onto Kampot and finally Phnom Pehn before we cross over to Vietnam sometime next week. It's suddenly dawned on me how little time we have left (4 weeks between now and our flight to China) so we're having to hurry a little bit and spend less time in places, which is fine. We did spend a while in Siem Reap but oh well, that's the luxary of backpacking, you're not tied down to any specific time limits anywhere, it all depends on how much you like somewhere.

While we were in Siem Reap (for a whopping 8 days) we managed to get a few days volunteering work at an orphanage. Well there wasn't much work to be done you just spent time with the kids, dancing, drawing, playing badminton, football, singing etc. Basically anything that will knacker you out will entertain them greatly. I'm so glad we got to do this, the kids were lovely and really happy and energetic, half the time you felt as if you were at a school, not an orphanage, and they're well looked out for. We bought them some new books/pens/sports equipment and donated some clothes on the last day we went as it's dirt cheap to buy and it was a bit sad how little they had.

Right that's all for now, we're off to the beach tomorrow so hopefully we'll do a bit more snorkelling and cycling before heading to Kampot for a hardcore uphill trek and some serious history lessons in the capital.